• Amicus Curiae: Washington v. Trump (2025): Birthright Citizenship
EJS joined the NAACP and League of Women Voters in an amicus brief submitted to federal appeals courts in support of four cases that challenge President Trump’s January 20, 2025, executive order seeking to revoke birthright citizenship for individuals born in the United States to undocumented persons or temporary legal residents. It is the only amicus brief in support of the birthright citizenship cases that explicitly centers racial justice, and EJS was invited to join this amicus brief based on its mission and body of work toward racial justice and equity. The brief asserts that birthright citizenship is not a matter of political debate or preference, but rather a right rooted in the purpose of the Reconstruction Amendments that establishes and protects the full personhood and civil rights of Black Americans and other historically excluded groups. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law is counsel for EJS and the other amici.
In February 2025, district courts in all four cases granted a nationwide preliminary injunction stopping enforcement or implementation of the executive order. But in June, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to partially pause three of the district court rulings and rejected the concept of universal or nationwide injunctions. However, the high court did not decide the substantive question of whether the birthright citizenship order is constitutional.
The Supreme Court will hear and decide Washington v. Trump this year. The outcome of this litigation will affect all Americans who have or will have birthright Citizenship.
• Amicus Curiae: Ethical Society of Police v. Bondi (2025): The Right to Peacefully Protest
The Plaintiffs are challenging the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) shuttering of the Community Relations Service (CRS), which acts as its peacekeeping arm. CRS has worked to safeguard civil rights leaders, activists, and participants since the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. The case is currently in the Massachusetts Federal District Court, where a Preliminary Injunction ruling is pending. Historically, the CRS of the DOJ has done critical peacekeeping and community healing and building work in the wake of tragic events involving the abuse or murder of Black men by law enforcement, supporting and helping protect peaceful protests, uprisings, and movements that have followed. Some California-specific examples include:
• Los Angeles (1991-1994): Following the Rodney King beating in 1991 and the April 1992 acquittal of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers who beat Mr. King;
• Oakland (2009-2010): after the January 2009 killing of Oscar Grant, a 22-year old Black man, by a white Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer while Mr. Grant was lying face down on a train platform with his hands cuffed behind his back, CRS deployed to Oakland in the immediate aftermath and during the criminal case against the police officer;
• Sacramento (2018): After the police shooting of Stephon Clark, a young Black man, in March 2018, Sacramento faced widespread protests and community outrage. CRS deployed conciliators in the immediate aftermath and later helped launch a Neighborhood Engagement Strategy Talks program, which led to new police policies on body cameras and foot pursuits, improved communication, and lasting mechanisms for community feedback.
All Americans remain in the crosshairs of the Trump administration as it continues to inflict harsh policies and deploy abusive tactics that violate civil rights. Peaceful protest and public monitoring and recording are critical to effectively respond to and challenge these civil rights abuses. CRS has an important role to play to support these citizen-driven efforts to preserve and protect the civil rights of all Americans; its preservation is critical.
• Amicus Curiae: Watson v. Republican National Committee (2026): Voting Rights
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is challenging Mississippi’s law (and other laws in 30 states and Washington, D.C.) that allow mail-in ballots to be counted if they are received within five business days after Election Day. The Supreme Court will hear and decide this case this year.
Though the focus of the case is Mississippi’s election law, 30 other states allow post-election day receipt of ballots for a prescribed time to be counted. Depending on how the Supreme Court decides the case, it could invalidate or invite litigation challenging any state’s mail-in ballot laws, potentially throwing the 2026 election into chaos. This outcome would disproportionately affect Black voters and other voters of color.
• JUST FILED: Californians for Equal Rights Foundations, et al. v. San Francisco Human Rights Commission & the City of San Francisco (2026): Reparations
A right wing group is suing the city of San Francisco for its’ reparations program. EJS is coordinating and mobilizing resources in the form of legal research and strategizing through the Law Firm Antiracism Alliance (LFAA) and the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth (ARRT) litigation subcommittee. EJS served as consultants on San Francisco’s reparations program and plans to continue and expand that role to help the city vigorously defend its program. EJS is mobilizing pro bono support and organizing strategic opposition messaging to protect San Francisco’s reparations program, recognizing that the outcome in this litigation will have implications for the historic 14 state level reparations laws that EJS spearheaded.
A Holistic Approach
EJS’s work is not just about this moment and its ad hoc litigation. EJS takes a holistic approach to its legal advocacy, building the legal infrastructure for the systematic sustained protection and expansion of our inclusive and multiracial democracy. This infrastructure includes:
• Legal academics–like EJS Advisory Board Member and revered 1st Amendment scholar and USC Law Professor Camille Rich, and Professor Kimberly WestFalcon, former LDF Executive Director and EJS 25th Anniversary Gala Champion of Justice award recipient and keynote speaker–to provide thought leadership, along with communications and messaging strategies;
• Attorney General Rob Bonta, who participated in a 2025 democracy town hall with EJS President Lisa Holder, hosted by the Japanese American National Museum Democracy Center;
• the California Department of Justice Civil Rights Enforcement Division, which actively engages with EJS on democracy and reparations protection, and spent two years researching and compiling information for the California Reparations Task Force, including Lisa Holder, to include in their Report;
• the Law Firm Anti-Racism Alliance, a respected and esteemed collaborative of nearly 300 top law firms working with legal services organizations to address systemic and structural racism in the law;
• the Charles Ogletree Reparative Bar Association, a pro bono panel of attorneys, including Lisa Holder as a founding board member, sharing resources and knowledge on protecting and expanding initiatives on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion-to-Reparations Continuum;
• Public counsel and city council for cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, which aim to implement local reparations programs of their own;
• Alphonso David and the Global Black Economic Forum, which targets the structures and systems that stand in the way of economic justice for the Black diaspora;
• and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Washington D.C. and San Francisco chapters, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that is led by the nation’s top attorneys as agents for change in the civil rights and racial justice movement.
This holistic legal strategy protects our civil rights wins from real-time disruptors and from future tyrants.